Hunter's Torn Quad

Joe Dorgan, better known as Johnny Swinger, was the latest to sign a WWE contract this past week. Dorgan was officially released from his TNA contract a few weeks ago. Credit - WO.com

I'm hoping Lita really has left Matt, so she can go with Johnny Swinger, and he can do a wife/girlfriend swapping gimmick with Lita. They could even team up with Orton and Keibler. In the ring too.

I'd like to see someone bust out the Octagon Special, a side russian legsweep into a wacky submission hold. Austin used it on Bret at WM XIII if you want see what it looks like.

Unfortunately, he was portrayed from May onwards as playing second fiddle to Hunter and Shawn. That doesn’t make a supposed World Champion look like the top guy; it makes him look, well, secondary, and nobody takes seriously a World Champion portrayed as not the top man. For the last 4 months of Benoit’s reign, the top guys on Raw were Hunter, Shawn, and, to a lesser extent, Eugene, with Randy Orton getting look in near the end. Benoit was treated as secondary, which is definitely not putting their World Champion over.

While the authenticity issue might have some credibility, the fact that his offence is strange is part of the appeal of Van Dam. He does a lot of things that nobody else does, or that nobody else does as well as he can. His forearms are a little weak, but I daresay that he doesn't want someone bitching about a bloody nose here and there. Same with his kicks. When he hits them with force, they look great, but someone gets a bruise or two, and they go bitching to management. That's not to say he should be granted the freedom to stiff people at will and hit as hard as he likes, but that if his kicks are to look good, some people are going to have to accept a couple of bruises here and there. If Van Dam was given a serious push, then the complaints to management would be minimal at best, because the other wrestlers would realise that it's those kicks getting Van Dam over, that are in turn drawing people, which in turn makes money for everyone. When Van Dam was so huge in lat 2001, people didn't like getting stiffed by him, but they tolerated it because they felt it was worth it because he was getting over and it could make some money. Once Van Dam got cut off at the knees, people were more open to complaining, because Van Dam wasn't being pushed, so it wasn't worth taking the shots. That is the worst thing to do to Van Dam. His unique offence is part of the reason he is so over. Change his moves, and you take away part of the reason he is over with fans, despite being buried for so long. Let him keep his offence and add to it, but absolutely do not take anything away. Then whoever he wrestles needs to work around that, and not work a match that causes Van Dam to have to change what is getting him over. Don't work on his knees, work on his back. Don't work a match where the selling would require Van Dam to not work to his strengths. It's basic wrestling common sense to work to strengths and hide weaknesses, and you do that with Van Dam by not having a match where he has to cut out what makes him special. Work on his back, do moves that allow Van Dam to take his 'folding' bumps, and stay away from his knees as much as you can, so he doesn't have to sell them. I know there will be people who will complain that it isn't realistic to not work on Van Dam's knees, but if you want realism, go watch UFC or a shoot-style group. Yes, a wrestling match should be realistic to a degree, but not when it takes away from the entertainment value of the match, and wrestling is about giving an entertaining match not necessarily a realistic one.

I wonder if Masters will get tagged as 'not knowing how to work', or if people will make excuses for it because he's jacked up. That's rhetorical, by the way.

I found Cornette way funnier than Heenan. I saw tons of Heenan's stuff, and he never once made me laugh.

Awesome. I need to pick up some of the older OVW shows methinks, from the sounds of this thread. Especially with The Bashams, if only to see what potential's currently being wasted. Start off with a tape of August 2003... Doug v.s. Damaja... loser leaves town. He should start with December 2002. The last episode on that TV tape details what led up to the 2/3 falls Southern Tag Title match with Dinsmore and Conway v Damaja and Machine earlier that year. That will put the Damaja-Machine dichotomy into perspective, and he can then watch the masterful build towards the Loser Leaves Town match. Better to do it like that, than go into the match cold.

And remember how Heenan was his usual bad joke telling self during the Owen Hart Memorial match ? He couldn't even drop the gimmick for that.

Vince needs to stop foisting his masturbatorial fantasies onto national television, and think about what effect having a hard on for 'roided up clods has on his roster.

One out of three announcers making an attempt to get the matches and wrestlers over is near perfection ? Heenan, by his own admission, was terrible in WCW. He was using 15-year old jokes and references, and was woefully behind the times. Tony was ok, but he lost credibility when he kept calling terrible Nitro's "the best ever". Tenay was great, though, as long as everyone else wasn't trying to talk over him or shout him down.

Someone needs to change to de-caf.

--Steven Richards will be undergoing surgery on Tuesday for various facial injuries suffered in the Monday Raw match with Chris Masters Credit - WO.com Way to go, you jacked up stiff.

If someone laughs at an offensive joke, it doesn't automatically mean they have the same offensive views that the joke promotes. If Cornette was a racist, why would he even have a black heel tag team ? Why would he have a black heel tag team and give them a main event push ? Why would he book an angle to get laid out by said black tag team ?

Thing is, I think it's fairly obvious that Jericho has been mishandled even WORSE than RVD (Jericho not getting the belt in April 2000, jobbing to Hunter at Fully Loaded 2000, being stuck in endless programs with X-Pac and Kane, etc) and has managed to maintain overness and a semblance of being a legit contender. However, can he be rebuilt enough to be considered a legitimate ME'er again? Is the damage beyond repair? Think about it, he's lost at 3 straight WM, he's lost at the last 2 SummerSlam --- WWE has jobbed him in a lot of big matches. -=Mike With at least a year of building, maybe he could be a credible main eventer, but I doubt it. I think the damage is beyond repair.

They had their window of opportunity for Jericho to hit that superstar stratosphere the night he 'beat' Hunter for the belt. And then they cut his legs off in the main event. They had some chances after that to elevate him into the main event level; they superstar stratosphere window had long since closed. However, they blew their last real shot at it at No Mercy in 2001.

In Hunter's defense (and, man, I never expected to use those words), isn't this a legitimate gripe with almost every booker in history? They always tend to push their favorites. -=Mike While booker's tend to push their favorites, the smart bookers also know when it's time not to do that, and I've seen nothing that shows me Hunter either knows or cares when it's time to stop pushing either he or his friends.

Cornette was funny because he was so charismatic on the mic. Not a larger than life Rock-type way, but in a wrestling manager-type way. What made him so tremendous on the mic was that he was not forcing anything; he came across as such a natural on the mic, that it didn't feel like he was pitching anything or trying to con you in any way. You could watch a Cornette promo, and very easily believe that Cornette meant everything he said. As for Heenan's announcing, if his character isn't one that can focus on matches and get them over, he shouldn't have been announcing in the first place. An announcer's job is to get the wrestlers and matches over, and if his character prevented him from doing that, he had no business commentating at all.

I think he at least had a great wrestling mind. I think his major fault, and it's one that a lot in wrestling have, is that his mindset is one that isn't in tune with current fans. He sees things in a way that doesn't reflect the current landscape.

Cornette easily. He was funnier and more of a natural on the mic, he could get heat at the drop of the hat, could get anyone over on commentary, and had a tremendous personality. To be honest, I've never thought that much of Heenan, either as a manager or commentator. I didn't think he was bad by any means, but I never saw him as any kind of great manager, merely adequate.

The best thing for business would have been for Jericho, the guy going on the road and supposedly one of the people meant to draw at house shows, to beat the guy who was only wrestling part time, and not going on the road to all the house shows. It was another high profile match against a top star that Jericho lost clean in the middle, which, regardless of any emotional attachment to the result, only solidified Jericho as someone who, not only can't win the big singles matches, but can't beat a part time wrestler to boot. While it may have been the sentimental choice for Michaels to win, business dictated that Jericho should have won.

While Hunter definitely has a great wrestling mind, so far he's shown either a complete unwillingness or a total inability to come up with anything good when it doesn't involve him or his friends in some way. Because of that, for Hunter to have any kind of real success when he takes charge, he needs to be surrounded by people who can try to influence him into giving serious creative thought into those who aren't his buddies. Unless something like that happens when he's retired from a full-time wrestling career and is heading up creative, I think he'll push his friends or buddies to the moon, regardless of whether it's best for business, and he'll probably put himself in the role of the retired babyface who comes out of retirement every so often to thwart the heels, because the current babyfaces of the time will be positioned has not being able to get it done themselves. It will be the ultimate irony that a devout fan of Ric Flair will turn into the very man who tried to run Flair out of the NWA.

It was meant to end with Daniel Puder challenging Angle. And it's being done so that Angle can be on TV, and not have to take bumps.

WWE makes most of its money off PPV's.

Say what? Cornette's views on an argument are that he wants to piss the other person off as much as he can, because that is, after all, the point of an argument. So, he'll say whatever will piss off the other person.